We can’t begin to express our gratitude to everyone who donated to PPMD this holiday season! Thanks to your generosity, and a community match, I am thrilled to announce that we reached our ambitious fundraising goal of $600,000!

Every dollar helps us reach our goals, and it’s not too late to support stronger tomorrows – there’s still time to make a tax deductible contribution and join the fight to end Duchenne.

When I started PPMD 25 years ago with a group of parents and grandparents, we had no idea what we were going to be able to accomplish. Nor did we know how daunting it would be to slow the progression of Duchenne. We just knew we had to do something.

Today, we are seeing progress in the form of huge strides and baby steps. Even when we encounter a setback, we continue to push forward toward our mission of improving care and investing in research. We have to end Duchenne, and the only way to accomplish that is for us to work together.

Like Tammy said in her email, PPMD is empowering families to consider clinical trial participation and report their day-to-day Duchenne experience with innovative enhancements to the largest, most comprehensive patient-reported registry for Duchenne. And we aren’t stopping there. PPMD is working tirelessly to improve the clinical trial process by exploring a platform trial design to address some of the ongoing challenges in clinical trials for new drugs to treat Duchenne.

Or James, who explained how PPMD defines and redefines how families care for their loved ones with Duchenne. It’s the defining and redefining of care, and our insistence that every person living with Duchenne receive the best care available, that we hope most directly impacts your family. We want to be more than just a critical resource at a critical time. PPMD is here to guide families like yours on this journey.

And like Colleen described, PPMD is accelerating the community’s access to effective treatments and optimal care. We are leading the push for more inclusive trials, standardizing measures so that trials are successful, and working to ensure access to future therapies when they are approved. We are doing this, while simultaneously investing in the most promising potential treatments, including significant investments in gene therapy and cardiac-related therapies, and a commitment to supporting promising early-stage preclinical work.

As I’ve mentioned over the last couple of weeks, PPMD has an ambitious care ‘to-do list’ for 2020. We believe that our expansive, integrated approach to Duchenne – examining the disease from every angle, identifying gaps in care, and investing in innovative treatments – is the only way we will end Duchenne.

We are where we are today because of people like you – families who continue to go above and beyond to join the fight, to fund the fight, to help us end Duchenne. Families that believe today is better because we have each other. And it’s because of you that we are confident that tomorrow will hold more promise than ever before. The future for everyone living with Duchenne has never been stronger.

Thank you for joining the fight to end Duchenne. As always, your belief in PPMD is our inspiration as we head into this promising New Year.

Here’s to an incredible 2020!

Pat Furlong
Founding President & CEO

P.S. It’s not too late to support stronger tomorrows – make your tax-deductible gift today!